, 1887-09-17

PCdISu preSSureS W1Cn the DoSG CUBAN mills,
owing to the large quantities of cane which it
is usual to pass through the rolls in given
times the great hardness of these and high
as would be here thought, criminally care
less feeding. While of the opinion, based
upon many accurate determinations person
ally conducted, that little or nothing can be
definitely determined in its regard by mere
peculiar or manual inspection, Cuban bagasse
from such an inspection appeared to the
writer to be about equal, in disintegration
and desiccation, to that from q IS to rs per
cent performance upon Louisiana canes by
Louisiana five-roller mills, though a uniform
ly, slightly higher temperature in the former
than in the latter. Certainly the crushing
as observed in most instances, was of ex,
ceeding excellence. No De Norway and
Fletcher's and Leblac, four.roller mills are
as yet found in Cuba; however, the form
er are reported from South America to secure
with considerable regularity, between 70
and II per cent of juice from presumably
similar materials.
The feeding of conductors or carriers is,
in a majority of instances, interesting, as
being much more economical in labor than by
our own system, if possibly, fatal to the
highest results in extraction. Carts are COM
AliOA11y OIChC W JUO SCb1A1OAO VI
and the canes thrown from these, haphazard
in the extreme, upon the latter without
thought of thin spots or thick, or of longtltu-
dinal or other particular delivery to the
bite of the mills. In one case, the scales
and clock, closely watched, showed three
men and q boy, rarely with the assls-
lance for short intervals of one, or at most
two additional persons, to be feeding, direct
ly, twenty tons of cane per hour with, as 1T
seemed, entire ease to all concerned. Tram
cars are unloaded in like fashion, rapidly and
comfortably, with as few laborers per tons
handled per hour and with as little concern
as to the mixed condition of the carriers
contents. The weaker mill of Louisiana,
except for its hydraulic governor, operated
after the practice of Cuba, might be calcula-
ted upon to collapse utterly before night fall
of it's initial days run. Neither the new st.
Louis mill, of Iberville, nor that OF Shady
Side plantation, St. Mary, need, probably,
here be excepted under an attempt to reach
their accustomed result.
Among the Cubans cane is rarely dumped
about the premises, as with us, to be after
wards rehandled; and is no longer, as form
erly, corded, except in limited measure at
times of break-downs and with small and IN
ferior, short handed places. Such dumping
is not necessary, of course, in the presence OF
railroads, with sufficient trucks to accomo-
date night work; and its absence is less to be
wondered at in other cases, that for many
reasons, grinding during hours of darkness
has now become decidedly the exception, II
ever it was anything else. Such carts as are
permitted to remain unweighed and unload.
ed over night, supply the requisite material
for the few early morning hours accorded to
crushing at yet other mills. Not an hundred
weight of cane was seen, probably, as to total
upon the earth of all the carrier yards visited.
In the employment of rail trucks it is Gus
tomary to draw these upon the scales, or at
least thence to the mills carrier, with bulls
rather than with locomotives, presumably to
insure greater safety from fre2 but so devoid
of trash is the cane as brought from the fields
and so direct the manner of discharge upon
the conductors that the space about these
last is clearly always almostt to a fault
It is contended that, set open as the mills
are. by comparison with our own, to accommo-
date the immense bodies of cane consumed, these
not only possess the faculty to take, from the
supply maintained in their chutes, what canes
can pass them, as these are required, insur-
ing thus of themselves q more even feed than
otherwise, but that, further, they take the
canes more readily, as well as more uniformly
and secure coincidently better results, with
proportionately greater safety, for the crls-
cross character of the feed. That observa-
ton indicated, however fallaciously, that the
plausibility of this claim cannot be denied,